AI Application in Telehealth and Impacts on Nursing Practices

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications have transformed healthcare, especially nursing practice, where they have enhanced various functions and processes. AI has also promoted positive patient outcomes within healthcare because it led to improved care. AI tools have relied mainly on big data to predict the trends and patterns in specific health conditions, thus promoting management. However, ethical and privacy issues have emerged as challenges to implementing AI in telehealth. In addition, the application of AI tools in telehealth has required healthcare systems to train nurses in advanced technology, allowing for effective implementation. The essay delves into the intricate effects of AI applications on telehealth as a nursing practice. It also explores the issues associated with nursing practices related to AI applications in telehealth. The essay argues that implementing AI in telehealth enhances the quality of patient care, workflow, and access to healthcare services. Thus, increased nurse education on new technological skills while creating ethical and privacy standards that will promote AI application in telehealth is imperative.

AI Applications in Telehealth

Artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses the use of machines performing tasks that need the intelligence of human beings, including learning, problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making. The application of AI adheres to algorithmic functions that process and analyze big data to facilitate clinical decisions. According to Sun (2022), the ability of AI tools to compute big data has led to accurate decision-making among nurses. Currently, nurses can personalize treatment plans, develop insights, and predict the outbreaks of several diseases (Kuziemsky et al., 2019). AI tools have thus promoted healthcare services that rely on human intelligence. Nursing practice has improved primarily due to AI tools' ability to process and interpret the healthcare data of individual patients.

AI tools have assisted in automated health record analysis, virtual nursing assistants, and remote monitoring and engagement with patients. Automated health record analysis has become a nurse's most used AI application. Automated health record analysis involves machine-learning algorithms that analyze medical data, thus detecting patterns for accurate treatment plans (Sharma et al., 2023). Another AI application in healthcare is virtual nursing assistants that leverage NLP to analyze clients' concerns regarding their health (Amjad et al., 2023). The American Nurses Association has created the NurseWise app through which nurses have assisted and coached patients on their care (Sun, 2022). Virtual nursing assistants have provided consultation platforms where patients' appointments, payments, and records are conducted online (Amjad et al., 2023). Technological tools prove invaluable for the ongoing advancement of nursing applications and results.

Finally, AI applications have recently spread to virtual triage and medical imaging sectors. In virtual triage, patient's symptoms are assessed using AI algorithms by the nurses, thus ensuring that the patients are attended to promptly and appropriately (Amjad et al., 2023). AI tools are also used in medical imaging to draw correct inferences about certain diseases. Giansanti (2023) noted that using AI in medical imaging has seen accurate diagnosis, making treatment convenient. Patients' results depend, to a large extent, on the ability to identify the diseases they have on time and with high accuracy.

Consequently, AI instruments enabling early and precise diagnosis are crucial to efficient treatments (Amjad et al., 2023). For instance, in treating diseases, AI relies on the patient's genetic makeup and past health history to determine the best treatment options (Fathi et al., 2017). In general, enhanced virtual triage and diagnosis are some of the significant uses of AI that nurses need to comprehend to enhance the adoption of AI in the healthcare system.

Impacts of AI Applications on Nursing Practices

Using artificial intelligence, Telehealth platforms have improved patient care by allowing nurses to incorporate it remotely. As Sharma et al. (2023) report, AI apps rely on sophisticated formulas that assess patients’ information and recognize patterns suggesting potential diseases in the future. For instance, AI can process data obtained from wearable devices in real time, calling the attention of nurses when the health status of patients has started to worsen (Giansanti, 2023). According to Sharma et al. (2023), such predictions assist the nurse in implementing preventive measures that may avoid other adverse outcomes. In addition, using chatbots and virtual assistants based on Artificial Intelligence frees nurses to work on delicate concerns, and the technology can handle the questions and prompts patients often ask repeatedly (Amjad et al., 2023). In addition, AI has assisted in enhancing nurses' telecommunication activities, thus enhancing the efficiency of the tasks performed. Nurses can use AI to handle different clerical tasks like fixing appointments, patient registration in electronic health records, and routing patients according to the severity of the ailment. Kuziemsky et al. (2019) note that automation cuts the time the nurses spend on paperwork and other related repetitive tasks, and hence, they spend much time attending to patients directly.

Furthermore, by utilizing AI, patients' data on their condition and prescription details and any possible interactions between medications can be readily available to the nurses when making decisions (Amjad et al., 2023). Such fast and easy access to large amounts of data helps nurses make choices faster, optimizing the efficiency of the telehealth consultation process (Kuziemsky et al., 2019). Consequently, a nurse can effectively handle a higher number of patients and solve the issue of rising demands for digital healthcare services.

Moreover, telehealth systems executing AI tools to conduct patient observation are transforming the nursing profession in managing chronic diseases. AI tools can continuously gather information based on wearable devices and home monitoring equipment to give nurses actual-time end-user reports of the patients (Sharma et al., 2023). Giansanti (2023) suggests this capability works as a strength because it enables the detection of possible complications and performs preventive measures. For example, while monitoring a diabetes patient, AI algorithms can highlight changes in the patient's glucose levels shortly before a change in condition that requires further action and nurse's intervention while monitoring patients with heart failures, identify signs of worsening condition before it becomes dangerous. Such an approach facilitates nurses' timely intervention in a client's care, which may help avoid exacerbating a condition and prevent hospital readmissions (Amjad et al., 2023). AI can also continuously monitor patients, thus lowering the stress of regular appointments. Overall, the AI application proves to be the panacea of critical patient care.

Besides, AI-assisted telehealth is eradicating geographical infrastructure boundaries in delivering necessary healthcare services, especially to the vulnerable section of the community. AI tools have helped nurses cover patients in remote and rural areas who have had poor access to such healthcare institutions. Chike-Harris et al. (2021) report that artificial intelligence's translation services have allowed nurses to treat patients with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Moreover, the competence of AI algorithms in population triage allows for prioritizing the care of a considerable number of patients and focusing on treating those whose condition is critical (Fathi et al., 2017). Such an extension of the firm's reach provides nurses the perfect opportunity to address disparities in the population's access to and utilization of health care services. The opportunity to address healthcare needs in populations that healthcare providers have previously neglected creates a positive change for the nurses and engages them in achieving meaningful results. AI is the solution to remote clinical programs for vulnerable communities.

Nevertheless, the use of AI in telehealth is a force for change regarding nurses' current and future education and continuous training. Academic curricula in nursing schools are undergoing modification to introduce new topics such as Artificial Intelligence, data science, and telehealth modalities. Chike-Harris et al. (2021) argue that this shift means new nurses should have the technical knowledge to work in hospitals and healthcare practices with AI. The third reason is that education for practicing nurses is continuous, and skills must be improved to meet the new technologies (Chike-Harris et al., 2021). More healthcare institutions are developing special courses and certifications focusing on telehealth nursing and using Artificial Intelligence. According to Chike-Harris et al. (2021), this new face of education also opens up new promising specialties for nurses, including telehealth coordinators, nursing informatics specialists, and consultants in AI implementation. Despite this push towards technical proficiency, though, nursing must also progress the fundamentals of the nursing field and refine the affective self, which is still paramount to positive patient outcomes.

Lastly, ethical and privacy issues have emerged when applying AI in telehealth among nurses. AI systems manage large volumes of patients' information, raising concerns about privacy and data security. Kuziemsky et al. (2019) report that nurses who have observed the provisions of relevant rules and regulations regarding data protection and patients' information on digital media have higher patient satisfaction scores. Kuziemsky et al. (2019) further note that AI-based clinical decision support systems are beneficial, but the nurses have to critically evaluate the suggested decision and consider the patient's conditions. Nurses are in an optimal position to manage the advantage of utilizing AI without compromising the human aspect of the patient's care (Gallese, 2023). The proposed solutions to these ethical concerns involve improving nurses' awareness of the fundamentals of digital ethics and promoting sustainable AI applications in clinical practice.

Conclusion

Incorporating AI applications as a tool in telehealth is revolutionizing nursing practice profoundly and extensively by stepping into this new age of healed patient-centered care through technological and human touch. Thus, technology such as AI is improving the quality of patient care due to enhanced workflow and widening healthcare service delivery. The AI tool allows nurses to be proactively precise and provide statistical care to a larger population of patients. However, this change brings about some difficulty, where the nurses have to learn new skills, work around ethical and privacy issues, and still have proper rapport between the nurses and patients through virtual interactions. Hence, with the ongoing development of AI-based systems, the nursing profession faces the complex question of adopting technological changes and maintaining the key values of caring, empathy, and patient proximity. This balance will enable nurses to take advantage of the ability of AI to enhance care quality and healthcare delivery transformation while still contributing to improving patients' lives and experiences. Therefore, the implementation of AI in the telehealth nursing practice will be a continuous process that involves the coordination of different stakeholders in healthcare delivery systems, including the technologists, the policymakers, and academicians, to ensure that the nursing profession remains relevant in the delivery of care in the era of advanced technologies without sacrificing the personhood in the healthcare setting.